The new head of the City Council’s higher-education panel yesterday slammed City University’s tougher entrance standards as discriminatory toward minority students.

Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron said there’s often a hidden meaning behind the use of the word “standards.”

“I think racism comes behind standards,” he told The Post.

Barron, an ex-Black Panther and Hunter College graduate, charges CUNY’s policy of requiring entrance exams and eliminating remedial courses at its senior colleges will restrict access to minorities.

Unprepared students are still permitted to enroll at the two-year community colleges, where they can take remedial courses.

“There’s always an issue of race in CUNY when it comes to open enrollment and free tuition,” Barron said.

“These standards that are put on the students now are unfair.”

Barron argued that college-age students shouldn’t be denied admission to four-year colleges because they received inferior education in the lower grades. He said the city should work to improve public schools rather than restrict access to the senior college.